For more than a century, UL has been a safety certification organization established to develop standards and testing to help safeguard manufacturers and consumers from unsafe products. You’re probably familiar with the UL logo on many of the products you use at home or at work. But you may have wondered what is UL and what exactly do they do? 

What is UL?

Founded in 1894 by William Henry Merrill as the Underwriters’ Electrical Bureau, a bureau of the National Board of Fire Underwriters, it’s more familiar to us today as Underwriters Laboratories. The bureau was particularly interested in the safety of new electrical products, but its first test was actually conducted on non-combustible insulation. Other early testing and reporting was done on fuses, fire alarm boxes, flexible cords, fire doors and extinguishers, multi-colored Christmas lights, and phonographs. Today UL serves numerous industries, including those that manufacture information technology and telecommunications equipment, industrial control components, motors, wire and cable, lighting, plastics and household and commercial appliances. UL has expertise with more than 22 billion UL Marks and has 170 labs as well as testing and certification centers around the world.

The Mission

UL’s mission is simply “Working for a Safer World.” Through its network of nearly 12,000 employees and global laboratories and inspection centers, UL advances safety through careful research and investigation, helps prevent or reduce loss of life and property, and promotes safe living and working environments for all people.

What UL Does

UL certifies, validates, tests, verifies, inspects, audits, advises, and educates. They work directly with companies to demonstrate safety, confirm compliance, enhance sustainability, manage transparency, deliver quality and performance, strengthen security, protect brand reputation, build workplace excellence, and advance societal wellbeing. Some of the services offered by UL include: inspection, advisory services, education and training, testing, auditing and analytics, certification software solutions, and marketing claim verification.

In the coming months we will feature articles from UL and UL Environment. We’ll dive deeper into the testing facilities and how UL’s expertise and capabilities have expanded over the years. We hope these stories will help specifiers more thoroughly understand the role of UL in manufacturing safer, more sustainable products.

For more information visit spot.ul.com/greenguard.